16.5 What is checked during the accreditation of part-time study programmes?

The use of the profile feature “part-time” is associated with the claim that a study programme in its entirety can be reconciled in terms of time and organization with a parallel professional activity. Whether the part-time study programme should be compatible with full-time or part-time employment and how this requirement is implemented in detail is essentially at the discretion of the higher education institution. The Accreditation Council expects this to be reviewed in the assessment process in relation to the individual study programme concept.

The Accreditation Council’s previous decision-making practice has resulted in fundamental considerations:

• As the work volume of a full-time degree course is designed to be equivalent to the work volume of a full-time job, the Accreditation Council has set the dictum “no full-time alongside full-time”, which was already valid in the “old system”, as the only generally binding assessment standard.  
• This dictum can be taken into account in different ways:
  • A study programme advertised as “part-time” is often implemented as a structured part-time course. In some cases, this is only a structured version of a parallel full-time course.
  • If the higher education institution decides to offer a study programme advertised as part-time exclusively on a full-time basis or without a structured part-time option, it must be made clear to prospective students and students in a suitable form that full-time study is generally not compatible with parallel full-time employment. Ideally, the higher education institution will recommend how many hours per week working hours should be reduced in order to complete a degree within the standard period of study, or it will refer to the possibilities of individualized part-time study. Whether such recommendations are followed is at the discretion of the individual student. In the opinion of the Accreditation Council, an obligation of the higher education institution to ensure in individual cases that professional activity and / or the modules completed per semester as part of the degree course are reduced cannot be derived from the provisions of the interstate study accreditation treaty and the MRVO or the respective applicable state ordinance.
• The study organization and the didactic concept of the study programme must be tailored to the specific needs of the respective target group, for example through face-to-face teaching in the evening or at weekends, block teaching or e-learning elements. This means that Purely part-time study with an extended standard period of study does not sufficiently justify the profile feature “part-time”.
• The Accreditation Council expects that the workload, especially of the attendance phases, is made transparent to applicants and students in a suitable form.